Icewind Dale: Difference between revisions

== '''Both games provide examples of:''' ==

* [[All in A Row]]: The party has several tactical formations options, including follow the leader. Life saving at several points in II.

* [[An Economy Is You]]

* [[Anti-Human Alliance]]: The forces the player fights in II.

** [[Critical Hit]]

** [[Death Is Not Permanent]]

** [[Experience Points]]

** [[Fetch Quest]]

* [[Lawful Stupid]]: Paladins and Monks will routinely refuse rewards. Kinda pushes [[Evil Pays Better]].

** Or just have another party member claim the reward. Which is just another kind of Lawful Stupid, come to think of it...

* [[Numbered Sequels]]

* [[The Ogre]]

** In the first game, the two opposing demon armies of Yxunomei and Belhifet never quite get the chance to duke it out simply because the group infiltrates Yxunomei's stronghold and slaughters the entire army in small-scale room-by-room battles, all to get a [[MacGuffin]] that would point them towards Belhifet's stronghold, where they proceed to do the same. It gets better when considering that nobody around actually had any idea that the demons so much as existed, and the party goes to both locations following a partially unrelated investigation.

* [[Pausable Realtime]]

* [[Point and Click Map]]

* [[Dem Bones]]: You'll encounter a lot of them. In the sequel, not as much.

* [[End of an Age]]: Icasaracht mourns the death of her once proud dragon culture at the hands of man. She joined forces with Wylfdene out of ''sympathy'' for the similar plight of the barbarians.

* [[Excalibur in The Rust]]: Pale Justice

* [[Haunted Castle]]: The Severed Hand, Upper Dorn's Deep and Maluradek's castle.

* [[Narrator All Along]]: The man telling your story is first thought to be a common omniscient narrator, until the ending cinematic where {{spoiler|his calm and serene voice suddenly turns hateful and he reveals that he is Belhifet himself}}.

* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: The ''Heart of Winter'' trailer narrates "She is the spirit of one who died in the North long ago." with footage of an old woman. This is then followed by captions "Something wicked chills the heart of Icewind Dale" complete with dramatic music, implying the old lady is responsible for the evils in the North. In the game however, the 'she' actually refer to [[Big Bad|a huge female white dragon]], while the old lady helps the party of adventurers.

** Another quest has you going to Dragon's Eye to retrieve the Heartstone Gem from Yxunomei. After retrieving it and butchering yet another army, you later find out that Yxunomei was Belhifet's greatest rival and killing her removed the only hurdle in his quest for world domination. Considering that the Gem was needed to find Belhifet in the first place, you pretty much had no choice in the matter.

* [[No Name Given]]: The Luremaster.

 

== '''The second game provides examples of:''' ==

* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: {{spoiler|Ilmadia join [[Big Bad|Belhifet]]'s army in the first game so her elven ancestral home, the Severed Hand, would be restored to its former glory. She got her wish in the second game: she gave birth to Belhifet's children. 30 years later they rebuilt the Severed Hand, only it's now a haven for [[Evil Sorcerer|Red Wizards]], slavers, demons, general outcasts, and the rebuilt tower is dedicated to the worship of [[Religion of Evil|Iyachtu Xvim.]]}}

* [[But I Can't Be Pregnant]]: {{spoiler|The backstory of Ilmadia, [[Big Bad|Big Bads]]' mother.}}

* [[Cloning Blues]]: It's been revealed that the mage Mavalon the party fought in the previous game was actually a clone gone insane.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: The whole secret passage into the Legion of the Chimera base. The original game would lag so badly that it would take days to get through this area. A player patch fixes this.

* [[Get On the Boat]]: Well, technically off the boat first, then technically an airship.

* [[Hide Your Children]]: Subverted. The barbarian village has the children gone missing. A local sorceress stole their life force and turned them into minks, which the village hunts.

* [[Holding Out for A Hero]]: The above village.

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: Yes but, ''[[Everything Is Worse With Bears|War-Bears]]''? And they ''bear'' collars?

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: The Legion of Chimera encourage this: Saablic Tan and Dracein. The former is a human Red Wizard and the latter a half-dragon. There's also a half-goblin who hooked up with, yet another half-dragon.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: The opening scenario could belong in the [[Deconstructor Fleet]]. Nearly all the quests in the first town don't just parody computer [[RPG|RPGs]] in general, they actually specifically skewer ''quests in Black Isle [[RPG|RPGs]]''. One character has basically no other purpose but as a lampshade salesman.

* [[Let's Play]]: [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/IWD2/ "Urggzob is TEN playthroughs!"]

* [[Nerf]]: The druid spell [[Shock and Awe|Static Charge]] which shock all opponents in the room every round. In the sequel, it only shock one random monster per round.

* [[Shout Out]]: Most obviously, you will find plenty of leftover stories and tales about the original party in ''Icewind Dale I''.

** Firtha Kedros mentions that in her dreams, she's seen visions of what is clearly meant to be [[Planescape|Sigil]], more noticeably ?[[Planescape Torment|a brambled garden, blacker than ink]], and even goes as far as to unknowingly imply that {{spoiler|she may be another of Ravel Puzzlewell's avatars}}. The latter was [http://www.bootstrike.com/Torment/Online/ravelpuzzlewell%20.html confirmed] by [[Word of God]].

** A monk in the Black Raven monastery sells a book called ''How To Be An Adventurer.'' Its index titles, besides blatantly mocking pretty much the entirety of ''D&D'' and fantasy adventure as a whole, includes a peculiar entry under "Dungeons to Avoid Like the Crotch-Rot: Dominara the Erinyes Nine-Layered Brothel of Violent Emasculation ([[Planescape Torment|No Slating... Or Slaking... allowed]])".

* [[Spider People]]: Driders.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: The designers initially wanted the game to follow the 2nd edition rules. In the end, they changed it to the 3rd.

* [[When Trees Attack]]: Evil ents. Best way to rid of them is [[Kill It With Fire|using fire]].

 

[[Category:Action RPG]]

[[Category:Icewind Dale]]